Compassion
by catherwauling
Summary: Neria seeks support from an unusual friend the night before her Harrowing.


**AN:** I don't own Dragon Age.

* * *

**Compassion**

* * *

"I think they're going to take me for my Harrowing, tonight."

We were seated on the edge of a cliff face, legs dangling above monstrous waves frozen in place. Saltwater, along with faint traces of ash and ethereal mist, lingered in the air, tickling my skin. On the horizon we could see the strange, twisted spires, harsh edges, and eerie lights of the perpetual sight that was the Black City.

She touched my hand, beckoning mine into hers. Her skin was calloused but gentle, its colour sun-touched and golden, for she had taken the form I had always found the most comforting, when I was in need.

"I have no doubts about you, _da'len_. I have no doubt that you will see this trial through."

Had her words been said by any other, I would have brushed them off. I _had _brushed them off—Jowan, a human apprentice and one of my only friends in the Circle, had long since told me he was confident I would pass the test with barely any effort. But I knew Jowan well enough; he would hide any bad thought and lock it up in his head, so to not worry or disappoint me. He chose to comfort me with half-truths and lies, perhaps because I was younger than he was, perhaps because he did not trust me with difficult truths.

But _she _would never lie; she was incapable of lying; and though her statement was pure sentiment, it was also the complete truth. For she was a being of sentiment.

A spirit of Compassion.

I smiled. "Your words mean more than you know."

I rested my head on her shoulder, and closed my eyes as she began to hum a tune. The tune was familiar to me, for she had sung it many times to rest my heart from frantic paces. Neither of us knew the words—or if there were words, to go with the song—but being here, next to her, _feeling _her sing through the contact of our forms, was enough.

We spoke little actual words; we had known each other long enough so that many times, words were unnecessary. She would know instantly what I felt when I entered her realm, and she would feel, herself, in turn.

I had long gone to her for sanctuary, so long that I can't remember how I first met her—it seemed as if she'd been with me since I was a child. I remember her being there when the Templars took me from the alienage back in Denerim, calming me when I was drained and restrained to be transported to Kinloch Hold. She was there my first night in the tower, when I was scared to wit's end by the men in metal and the strange human children that squinted at my pointed ears.

I do not know how I would have survived this many years, had it not been for her.

"Tell me your fears," she murmured, a pause after her song was complete.

I breathed in slowly, smelling salt, earth, and roots. I had always found it curious, how so much about her reminded me of the _vhenadahl_, the Tree of the People, back in the alienage. And why she chose the rocks and the sea, for so many of our meetings.

"I'm afraid of what I don't know," I admitted. All apprentices knew that the Harrowing was a test of ability, and that it determined whether we would become full mages of the Circle. Those that passed we saw again before they moved to the Mage's Quarters; those that didn't, we never saw again.

I shouldn't even know that my Harrowing was imminent—the date of our trials were supposed to remain a secret. It was only thanks to a subtle hint made by First Enchanter Irving during the evening meal that these worries were fresh on my mind. Irving had always been particularly fond of me, perhaps for my interest in glyphs and sigils, subjects he taught extensively to the Harrowed mages.

"I don't know what the Harrowing entails," I continued, "only that many don't make it through, and those that do—they don't like to talk about it, afterwards."

There was a strict ban preventing Harrowed mages from telling apprentices anything about the trial, but I doubted it was the ban that held loose tongues still. More than one close friendship had been ended between mage and apprentice from unexpected discretion.

What rumors _did _spread among the apprentices were often wild and inane, but two things were held to be true: the Harrowing was supposed to be a terrifying experience, and not all apprentices who took the Harrowing survived.

"You are afraid of dying," she murmured.

"I am afraid of the unknown." It wasn't a disagreement.

We had talked about death before. I had asked what she knew about it, asked about the differences between a mortal dying and a spirit passing away. She told me that when a spirit dies, its energies linger in the Beyond—the _elvhen _name for the Fade—and sometimes coalesces into a similar being, but without the same memories. It wasn't a rebirth, exactly; more of a renewal.

On what happens when a mortal dies, she taught me an _elvhen _word—_abelas_, meaning "sorrow"—and spoke no more.

She said that same word now. _"Ir abelas, da'len."_ _I am filled with sorrow for you, child._

I smiled, wearily, and simply nodded. What more was there to say?

In moments, the Templars would come, and take me to the Harrowing chamber on the topmost floor of the tower. Whether or not I returned was a question neither of us could answer. But there was an honesty in that uncertainty—in _her _uncertainty—that slowed my beating heart and soothed me like a warm salve.

This was the Fade. It laid bare the deepest secrets and wove the most beautiful fictions. Its realms were ever-changing, yet its elements were as constant as a ship's anchor in a storm. The Black City was always visible in the distance. There was a perpetual sharpness in the air.

I had wandered through the Fade since I was a child, and quickly learned that my affinity for its realms were unique; I was forced to adapt, to become adept at keeping caution and secrets. To say my prayers to the Maker with the Black City in my mind, and the broken lore of my people whispered in the voices of spirits in my heart. My magic, therefore, came as little surprise to me, and I was able to hide it for years longer than I knew other children did.

I had grown adept with lies. At saying one thing, and meaning two others.

Of course, I could not keep up my pretense for long. I was but a child, and the alienage was no place to harbor refugees from the Chant—lest the humans come, with their swords and torches, and purge the many for the wrongs of a few.

And a part of me was relieved, when I was imprisoned in the Circle's walls. For whatever calm I found in Compassion's realm scattered into memory with the day. And in the mortal world, uncertainties were no longer honest; fictions were not tapestries, but lies and manipulations. I knew that what I could do was dangerous. I knew of _demons_—what the Chantry called spirits that wished to cross over to the mortal world—and what they would do to achieve their goals.

I feared that one day the vigilance of the spirits I called my friends would not be enough.

In the Fade, I dreamt of a mage that had fallen prey to a demon. I dreamt of her _abelas_, her sorrow, and how it fueled her rage; I dreamt of monsters clad in steel wielding cold swords that hacked her body apart; I dreamt of a girl broken by Templars in a small room hidden from sight and sound.

I also dreamt of the Templar that had struck the final blow. His armor felt rigid, rusted, somehow _shallow_. Sweat dripped down his forehead and wet his palms beneath his gauntlets. He saw a terrifying creature of fire rending the flesh of his friends—his _brothers_—in a massive, high-ceilinged room bathed in blues and reds.

In the Fade, both of these dreams were true.

But in the waking world, the contradictions of _relief _and _fear _were not so easily reconciled.

Compassion stirred beside me. "What troubles your thoughts so?"

I laughed, bitterly. "I know how terrified I'll be when I awake. So how can I feel so safe?"

She turned my chin and met my eyes.

"Because you are here," was all she said.

We stayed together, resting against each other, the stillness of the waves and the shimmering greens of the sky keeping us company for an indefinite amount of time. There was a lingering energy about the air, which made me suspect that Compassion was slowing the night's passage for my benefit.

Not for the first time, I felt no desire to wake.

And not for the first time, I felt the pull of the mortal world.

"I think I have to go," I murmured.

She smiled. On the face she had chosen to wear, her smile lit up her eyes and graced her cheeks with a gentleness I'd rarely seen outside her realm. It was a vaguely familiar sight, as it always would be—as she meant it to be.

"_Dareth shiral, lethallin." Safe journey, my friend._

The cold grip of a gaunleted hand shuddered me awake.


End file.
